quick review

quick review

Posted Feb 16, 2003 0:25 UTC (Sun) by socket (guest, #43)
In reply to: quick review by iabervon
Parent article: The Art of Unix Programming

You make some good points. I've often found myself describing the difference between Raymond and Stallman in terms of pragmatism vs. ideology, knowing that it oversimplifies. I like your explanation of the more subtle points.

To address a part of your comment:

The non-technical end users have no use for the source themselves, and must therefore be convinced that there is a use to them to the source being available to those who what it; the open source message seems more effective than the free software message at this.

I disagree that end users have no use for source. My girlfriend's started using Linux recently, and doesn't do programming (yet. Perhaps she might, at some point, but it doesn't much matter.) When things go wrong on her Windows partition, there's not much I can do - I'm thoroughly unfamiliar with Windows anymore, and often all you can really do is uninstall and reinstall and hope the bug goes away. When something goes wrong on her Linux system, it's much easier to track down and fix. I haven't had to dig into source code yet to fix anything on her system (though I have on my own) but I'm much happier simply having that option. And she's much happier knowing that it can probably be fixed.

I'm certainly not the best programmer, though. But if I can't fix it, I can find someone more competent who can. A large benefit of running free software is that developers are more open to listening to their users, when it's a polite, informed question or bug report. Until more companies read The Cluetrain Manifesto and take it to heart, commercial software will be at a disadvantage because of the iron gate between developers and users. Even if nobody I know can fix it, given the source code, the relationship between users and developers is more often such that bug reports often do some good, and are likely to get fixed faster than in commercial software - I find that free software developers typically have an attachment to their project and their code that you don't find in commercial software; it's something they made because they need it, and care about it, and it's rare to have the same kind of interest in an employer's project than one you work on of your own incentive.

I think pragmatism and idealism are both necessary elements to the quality and success of free software. The fact is, people care about it.

I tend to refer to "free software" more often than "open source," but I generally mean the same thing by it. I think it's good that both Eric Raymond and Richard Stallman exist, because different people will gravitate toward different ideologies. The companies may have come to free software via Eric Raymond's publicization, and many would like to not fully embrace Stallman's strong stance on what that should mean, but on the whole, I'm happier that these companies are more free than they used to be. I may philosophically feel closer to Stallman, but I'd rather have partially free than non-free.

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